Home is Where the Heart Is
by detective-wiseass
Summary: "She shook her head, floundering in her own stream of consciousness. She said she'd be here. She'd meet me here, and we'd have our night in like we promised ourselves we would, Maura thought." One-shot. Established Rizzles.


She was pacing. For how long now, she couldn't be certain. After a time, she'd stopped counting the minutes, stopped counting the number of steps between the kitchen and the front door.

The hives had spread rapidly and with a vengeance, crawling across her chest, down her sternum, and up her neck. Now they were threatening to cross her jawbone and assail her cheeks.

She hardly noticed.

Breathing had become a challenge, her lungs and diaphragm seemingly capable of only the shortest and shallowest of breathing patterns.

She was hardly conscious of this either.

The shakes had set in as cortisol overwhelmed her various muscle groups and set them to quivering.

It was a wonder she could still stand, still walk, as panic staged a coup on her mind, putting down rational thought and stirring her most debilitating fears into a frenzy.

_Jane_.

Though the woman she loved more than anything else in this world often joked of being driven to insanity by Maura, the medical examiner now resented such humor as she experienced the reality of how fear could subdue logic and wreak havoc on the mind and the body.

_Jane_, Maura thought, _will be the one to drive _me_ crazy_.

She shook her head, floundering in her own stream of consciousness. _She said she'd be here_. _She'd meet me here, and we'd have our night in like we promised ourselves we would_, Maura thought.

But Jane was late. More than two hours late, and she hadn't called or texted. Hadn't responded to Maura's efforts to reach her. Korsak had not been reachable either. She managed to get a hold of Frankie, but he knew nothing of his elder sister's whereabouts.

_She's supposed to be home with me_, she thought, panting, desperately resisting tears. If Jane was in trouble, she couldn't afford to fall apart.

_Why isn't she here?_

Old vestiges of Catholic guilt gripped Jane by the proverbial short hairs and held on tight.

_God, I'm so fucking late_. She pressed a little harder on the gas, aware that she was speeding, hearing Maura's voice in her mind, chastising her about being a public example.

She pulled a hard right onto her home street, and white-knuckled her standard-issue BPD sedan straight into the driveway. She turned the key in the ignition and sat there, hands still gripping the wheel, focusing on regulating her breathing. Driving fast was still just as effective at getting her pulse up as always.

Equally as effective was the thought that she may have royally pissed off her beloved wife.

_She'll forgive you_, she told herself. _She always does_.

With one last deep breath, she pushed the car door open and stepped into the balmy summer night. She was uncomfortably aware of how the Boston summer humidity made her blouse and slacks stick to her skin. Of how desperately she needed a shower.

_She can't help but forgive you_, she thought as she turned the house key in the front door's lock and stepped inside.

Maura froze in her tracks as the front door swung inward to reveal Jane. In her arms were a pair of bags plastic bags loaded with takeout. Maura backed up a few steps and sagged against the kitchen island.

"Hi, sorry I'm late," Jane said, offering a sheepish grin. "But I'm home!" She shrugged.

Maura took in her wife's lean form, framed in the doorway. Safe. Whole. Smiling. Home again from work. Once she recovered from her initial, shock-induced bout of alexithymia, she knew her first sentiment to be expressed would be outrage.

Jane's grin wilted under Maura's stare. She sensed that very same outrage making its way to the surface.

"Sorry?" The medical examiner's voice, diminished from weeping, was barely above a whisper. But the intensity of it rang in Jane's ears. "You're…_sorry?"_

"Maura, are you alright?"

"Am I- ? What, did you just…forget about our plans?"

Jane made a bold move by crossing the foyer and setting the bags on the breakfast bar. "I didn't forget," she said quietly, her voice level. Maura hadn't moved, and now they were eye-to-eye. Maura glared across her shoulder at Jane even as tears threatened to leak once again onto her cheeks.

"You didn't call. Didn't text," Maura started counting off Jane's offenses on her fingers. Her breathing accelerated again, coming in short gasps. But she wasn't finished with Jane yet. "I had _no _idea where you were."

Jane was just shaking her head slowly, eyes cast upon the hardwood floor. "Maura…"

"What am I supposed to think, Jane? Tell me. How am I supposed to react when you say to expect you _around _eight-thirty, and you're still not home two hours beyond that? And with no communication?" Jane was looking more and more abashed by the second. "Oh, I could make assumptions, Jane. I could assume any number of things. Not the least of which is that you are…you are…stranded…somewhere…hurt…possibly…possibly…dead…and I can't…" she couldn't finish. Her voice rose to a hoarse squeak and fell apart. Sobs overtook her. She buried her face in her hands and slouched further against the counter. She turned slightly away from Jane; a feeble attempt to hide in her vulnerable state,

"Oh, God, Maura," Jane murmured, reaching for her wife with both arms.

Maura recoiled, some of her pain reasserting itself as anger. "No."

But Jane was nothing if not tenacious in the face of adversity. She reached again for Maura, pulling her in close when her beloved started to resist. "Maura. Baby. I'm so sorry. So so sorry. I just," she sighed, rubbing her wife's back in the places she loved most. She swallowed, fighting sympathetic tears as Maura wept into her shoulder. "I just got caught up in paperwork for a case. I lost track of time. It's a dumb excuse, I know. But it's the truth. I never left the station after you went home. Okay? I'm sorry."

Maura nodded on her shoulder, still weeping quietly. Jane could feel her shaking in the aftermath of one of the more severe panic attacks she'd ever had. She mentally kicked herself for putting this wonderful woman through so much distress. Since Maura had apparently accepted her explanation and apology, Jane knew the only thing left to do was to ride out the storm with her. To hold her close until the weeping passed, to be her life raft until the seas calmed. It took a while, but eventually Maura's breathing slowed and evened out. Jane leaned back carefully to look into those warm hazel eyes.

"I couldn't make it without you," was all Maura could say, her chin still trembling. She gestured helplessly at the house. "This isn't…it isn't _home _without you in it." A sob escaped her lips.

Jane slid long, slender fingers tenderly through red-gold tresses and schooled her expression to one of absolute solemnity. "Maura. Look at me." Maura obeyed. "I'm here. I'm not leaving you. I am not your parents. I am not your phony friends from boarding school or college. I am your _family_. _I am _your home. And I will never, ever leave you. Understand?" She kissed her wife. "I love you too damn much to do that."

The medical examiner nodded.

Jane lightly placed her index fingertip in the small hollow at the base of Maura's neck, right between the clavicle bones. "Hives are under control, at least." She offered that cavalier smile that always made Maura's heart melt.

Maura was still not quite in possession of her powers of speech. But she leaned in again and pressed herself as close as possible to her wife. The gesture said everything she was unable to express verbally.

"Maura, honey…you're still shaking. You were that scared I wasn't coming back?"

"Of course I was, Jane." Maura said into her neck, a tiny bit of sass creeping back into her voice. It dawned on her, then, that Jane was wearing the tailored leather jacket Maura had brought back as a souvenir from France the last time she'd traveled there alone. It still fit her perfectly, and the scent of leather mingled with Jane's aroma in a way that made Maura's head spin.

Maura's ears picked up the creak of leather with every movement as Jane gave her a squeeze. "God, I guess I know better than to give you even a _rough _ETA; you still took it so literally!"

Maura returned the squeeze, fingertips pressing just inside the edges of Jane's shoulder blades. "Two hours is a long time to go without you, Jane." Another shudder passed through her body. They were becoming fewer and further between.

"C'mon," Jane said, rubbing her back again. "Do that yoga breathing thingy you always tell me to do. Oo-ja…oo-ja-ma…what is it?"

"Ujjayi breathing." Maura couldn't help but laugh, then, into Jane's neck. She shifted slightly and placed a kiss of gratitude on the soft skin over Jane's trapezius muscle.

"Mm?" was all Jane could get out, intrigued as she was by the change in Maura's mood. She felt herself smiling.

Maura moved again, placing her lips just beneath Jane's jaw, where her pulse was. She kissed Jane repeatedly, her lips moving gracefully down Jane's throat. Almost unconsciously, the detective tilted her head back just a touch, surrendering like she never could with anyone else. "Does this mean you've forgiven me. 'Cause I'm feeling awfully forgiven right now."

Warm, soft laughter bubbled up between them. Yes, Maura was back. "Of course, Jane. I can never not forgive you." Her hands moved to Jane's waist, pulling with a slight suggestion at her shirt.

"Maura?"

"Jane."

"Maura." Jane stopped her, catching her hands and pulling gingerly away. "I am in dire need of a shower, and some spicy Thai food. I'm sticky and I haven't eaten in ages."

Maura cocked a brow at her and smiled.

"Could you…uh…would you mind, please, heating this stuff up," she pointed to the bags full of takeout, "while I at least rinse off and change?"

Maura nodded and stepped out of her arms. She immediately busied herself with the food, and when Jane looked closely at her face, she was relieved to see the smile remained. Maura caught her staring, and Jane realized for the umpteenth time how ridiculously in love she was with this woman. "Well? Go shower!"

"Okay." She couldn't stop smiling. "I promise, I'll only be five minutes," she called over her shoulder as she headed for the bedroom.

"Three," Maura demanded, and was rewarded with a throaty laugh from the bathroom as the shower was turned on. She reached into a bag to pull out the last box of pineapple rice with yellow curry, and found something was still inside it. Somehow, Jane had managed to fit a small bouquet of carnations and stargazer lilies – Maura's two favorite flowers – in the bottom of the takeout bag. Attached to the flowers by a length of twine, was a note. Maura unfolded it and read, smile broadening as tears once again pricked behind her eyes.

"Happy anniversary, Perfect. You're my very best thing. You've made me the happiest woman on the planet, and

I LOVE YOU,

Jane."


End file.
